Microsoft has joined Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna to fight scareware. A suit filed by McKenna’s office in King County Court seeks an injunction against James Reed McCreary IV, Registry Cleaner XP, Branch Software, and Alpha Red. Microsoft and McKenna said McCreary used deceptive free scans and harassed consumers.

The Consumer Protection Division of the attorney general’s office filed suit Tuesday under Washington’s Consumer Protection Act and Computer Spyware Act and asked for an injunction against James Reed McCreary IV, Registry Cleaner XP, Branch Software, and Alpha Red. The suit in King County Court says McCreary, who operates Branch Software and Alpha Red in Texas, advertised, marketed and offered for sale fake software products to Microsoft Internet Explorer users.

As Branch Software and Alpha Red, the suit charges, McCreary used scareware to convince IE users that Registry Cleaner would fix corruption problems on their computers. Scareware is software used to cause shock, anxiety or threats.

McCreary allegedly sent pop-up windows through the Windows Messenger service that alert users of a critical error and tells them the computer is corrupt or damaged. The error message then directs users to fix the problem by going to www.registrycleanerxp.com.

At the Web site, users are offered a free scan to find registry errors. After the scan, users are offered a product for $39.95.

“The attorney general’s office, along with Microsoft, has yanked the fear factor dial out of the hands of businesses that use scareware as a marketing tool and have spun it toward them,” McKenna said. “We won’t tolerate the use of alarmist warnings or deceptive free scans to trick consumers into buying software to fix a problem that doesn’t even exist.”

Another violation, according to papers filed with the court, is that McCreary harassed consumers. One Internet Protocol address received 214 messages from Registry Cleaner in 24 hours. Some messages were sent one minute apart from each other.

McKenna is asking that McCreary pay up to $2,000 for each violation by Registry Cleaner.

These lawsuits were possible, according to the attorney general’s office, because of the state’s adoption of a law in 2005 which explicitly prohibits spyware activities and imposes serious fines and penalties on violators.

As of Tuesday, McKenna had filed seven suits under the law and Microsoft has filed a total of 17 spyware actions since 2005.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has partnered with Washington’s attorney general on spyware issues.

In 2006, Microsoft joined McKenna in suing Secure Computer LLC for using deceptive pop-up ads warning users that their computers were at risk and might contain spyware. When users visited a Web site to fix the fictitious problem, they were asked to purchase a spyware cleaner. The company also used fake Microsoft-sponsored ads, according to Microsoft.